Don't kid yourself. You're missing the part where the heads of departments who deliver bad or embarrassing news get publicly vilified and/or fired. That's dire

Don't kid yourself. You're missing the part where the heads of departments who deliver bad or embarrassing news get publicly vilified and/or fired. That's direct pressure now to fudge/push the numbers before they come out. At the department level, there is usually a long culture of objective process to overcome, so it will probably start off subtle/small, but once they clear the old guard away they will report anything they want. > the administration is very sensitive to market motion Not exactly. The administration (Trump) is sensitive to embarrassment and criticism from his own side. Tanking markets are such an embarrassment, and while he might back down when markets tank, he might also do the the other thing he does to deflect embarrassment and criticism, which is to perpetrate some new outrage so that everyone complains about the new thing instead of the old thing. And, of course, the markets will adjust. Iffy government numbers will get priced in. You might like to believe there's a rational actor there, but there isn't. It's a guy moving from one gut reaction to the next, where his gut reaction is often to push everyone's buttons.